Kanata Thawed
by ChakiChakiGirl
Summary: The sequel to the Lucky Star parody "Kanata: Totally Dead?" Check my bio page for more info on why I write as I do! Please review and remember, it's a fun story not a term paper! ;
1. Chapter 1

**Kanata Thawed**

(sequel to "Kanata: Totally Dead??")

by Dee Eon

The Izumi kitchen phone rang and Konata jumped from her chair.

"Easy, Konata, easy," Soujirou said, barely composed himself while answering the phone. "Yes, Izumi here.Yes...yes...positive irradiation? Yes, I understand...yes. None? I see. Yes...yes..."

On pins and needles, Konata watched her father pace the kitchen with the phone, her anxiousness mixed with consternation every mounting second;

'Com'on dad, com'on! Spill it!!'

"Two weeks? God, that's a long time! Yes, I understand. I apologize for my impatience. Thank you. Thank you, doctor. Yes, I'll tell her now. Thank you."

Soujirou hung up.

"Well??" Konata anxiously blurted.

Soujirou smiled like the Cheshire Cat. "They got – vital signs and brain waves," he announced with a catch at his throat.

Stunned, Konata slumped against the wall as though a once wild fantasy struck her like a brick wall. "O wow!..." she blurted, settling to her seat. "O wow! Mom – defrosted! And – alive??"

"Kanata's not conscious yet, but she's relatively stable on life support till they do the liver and pancreas transplants they had on stand-by tonight, and they're administering her the anti-cancer virus while we speak," Soujirou explained, taking it with a sigh of grim relief. "I knew they'd come up with the cure one day. I just never dreamed it'd come so soon. Phoenix Corp's just as happy too; she's only the second client they've successfully re-animated."

"Second?? Just second??"

"Konata, don't look a gift horse in the mouth when you're in a desert. Suspended animation's a bleeding edge science. Even NASA's stumbling with it."

"Sorry. You're right, dad. So, when can we see her?"

"Not for another two weeks. I know, I know, it's way to long to wait, but she's not just recuperating from immersion in liquid nitrogen but a double transplant and gene cancer therapy and they want her as stabilized and sterile as possible before receiving relatives. So these will be the longest two weeks of our life, full of anxiety and joy. I will certainly be at temple tonight and until she's back."

"Yea, me too!" Konata shook her head. "Awesome! It's like – like so unreal I'm all freaked out! I mean, you expect something like this happening in a game or a movie, but this is – is more than real! It's – it's so freaky unreal!"

He smiled and squeezed her shoulders, and for once she didn't cringe the slightest at that. "I know how you feel, Konata. This day was an eternity to me every day for seventeen years, and soon we'll find out whether all our hopes were worth it."

"But – if she's alive –"

"Her body is..." he began with apprehension and reserve, "...but there might also be brain damage, as they keep warning us. Brain cells are very sensitive to thawing, but even weak brain waves are a positive sign. Remember, this procedure is highly experimental and extremely controversial. Phoenix Corp's stipulation of getting Kanata into this program virtually without charge was that she's a highly classified test subject. If anything – happened, they don't want any negative publicity to stain all their research."

"Because she's their guinea pig, right? Well, why didn't you pass on reviving her until they were more sure that they could've done this down pat?"

"The re-animation process itself isn't likely to change for another decade or so, so once the cancer cure popped up there wasn't really a reason to wait, especially since I'm not all that sure about my longevity these days. Besides, Kanata's last wish was that the next time she opened her eyes that she'd see both our faces on earth or in heaven, and if not, for the company to – er, dispose of her body."

Konata nodded as though trying to grasp that there could be such unselfish love. "Man, like – I – I don't know how I oughta feel! They pluck my mom outta a freezer like a crab stick and stick her in a big microwave and she's alive. Alive! It's like so – so unreal!"

"Yes, it is. I remember Kanata's family lambasting me for not putting her in an urn or deep the ground instead of a cryogenic capsule, but now my eccentricities will be vindicated!"

"Should we call them?" she asked, taken aback when Soujirou shook his head.

"No. Until the outcome of this is overwhelmingly positive no one else must ever know. In their minds and souls Kanata is totally dead and buried, and if they learned that she was actually revived then there's any kind of setback, or a – a relapse..." he said stopped with a voice clenched tight as his heart.

Sensing his grim meaning, Konata soberly nodded. "Yea...they'd go totally ape-shit. Like me!" She soberly looked at the family photo on the wall, of her twin holding a tot in her arms and embraced by Soujirou. "Dad...this is going to be a real creep-out. I mean, I never really thought about Mom all that hard before because I don't even remember her, though sometimes I feel her haunting my memories like it's my baby memories remembering her, especially when sensei bashes me on the head just because I rest my eyes a little in class. Now I'm glad they're there because now it won't feel like I'm meeting a total stranger, you know?"

Soujirou smiled and squeezed her shoulders. "I think we're both going to seem like strangers to her, my Konata. And her being back is the best thing that's happened to you even past seeing your mother again."

"What do you mean, dad?" Konata asked and Soujirou sheepishly shied like it was something unseemly she was long blind to.

**# # #  
**

It took them several hours to drive north near Sapporo in the mountains at night, which was scary enough for car-sick Konata, but on a dusty turn-off from the main road a sign instructed Soujirou to turn off his headlights and in the darkness ahead a string of embedded red lights came on like illuminated beads on a runway for him to wind along a mountain.

Konata moaned. "O man, like this is sane as a roller coaster in a blackout!"

"Don't worry. I won't hit a deer," Soujirou joked just as she again heaved into a barf bag.

"Like I'm rolling on the floor, dad! Why did they want us to come so late anyway?"

"So there's no chance of a camper or private plane stumbling over them. They're very serious about security. From industrial espionage and assorted moral and religious fanatic groups. This research can affect everything from space flight to the funeral industry, not to mention threatening the life and soul continuation claims of many religions."

After twenty minutes they stopped on a mountainside plateau, where under towering firs was a large wooden cabin that looked like it was built against the hillside, only a lone dim lantern at its rustic door casting any light.

"This is it??" Konata blurted in surprise and disillusionment. "Naw, we made a wrong turn!"

Soujirou smiled and looked up as a flashlight beam came from nowhere and scraggy man looking like a country bumpkin with a hat and smoking a pipe sauntered up and tipped his hat. "Howdy, sir!"

"Howdy," Soujirou replied.

"You must be new to the deer hunters club! Did you make reservations for the retreat?"

"No. I'm no hunter. I'm a veg-head."

Konata groaned. "Dad, we're definitely ain't there yet!"

"Lots of folks lose their way from the highway, missy!" the man chuckled to Soujirou like he was expecting a hand-out.

"Well, thank my lucky star I ran into you to straighten my way!" Soujirou answered as Konata's eyes rolled in exasperation, and he took out his wallet and gave a black card to the man who whipped out a pocket scanner over it and a green light came on. He returned it.

"Just leave your car here with the keys, sir," the guy said with a bow and Soujirou bowed back and led a bewildered Konata toward the cabin's lantern light.

"What was all that about, joking with that hick?"

"We were exchanging passwords and that 'hick' is actually a security guard and ex-Defense Forces commando."

"Com'on!"

"Nope. They've been monitoring us since we left the main highway. We only got this far because they're expecting us and know the car and passenger i.d.'s."

"All that – just for this??" Konata said as they came upon the cabin and the door opened and a man in a black guard uniform nodded and ushered them into a hi-tech room surrounded by smoky glass and left them to inspect a console's X-ray-infrared monitor. He nodded and pressed a button and a door ahead slid open, and even more nonplussed, Konata gawked at a brightly lit passageway that stretched far far longer than the cabin was on the outside.

"Man! This is way WAY out!!" Konata declared as they strolled down what could've been the corridor of a small ultra-modern office building. "Like, when's James Bond popping out, uh?"

"Actually you're not far. That cabin conceals the opening of a cave system that was once part of the top-secret Japanese Early Warning Defense system in the late sixties. This place was designed to survive a nuclear attack so it could control the military if headquarters was ever destroyed. Phoenix Corp discretely purchased it when the Cold War ended since the Yankees decided to shift our defense on their backs."

"Dad, I know rent in Tokyo's off the wall, but isn't all this a little much?"

"The security costs are nothing when you consider that the success of the research here can reap tens of billions of yen easy. Even if it just slipped out how far the company's research has gotten, it could inspire a storm of rivals who can blow a monopoly."

An intern in the hall smiled and exchanged bows then escorted them down a hall cluttered with lab and hospital equipment and showed them into white room with traditional Japanese paper partitions and flowers everywhere as though to make up for windows.

A nurse outside one of the closed-in partitions smiled and bowed to Soujirou.

A lump swelled Soujirou's throat. "Konata...can you wait here for one minute, please?" he requested.

"Uh, sure dad," Konata reverently said, sitting on a chair, her pumped uneasiness more than willing to stall as she watched her father, almost staggering as though in a dream, moved behind the partition. Her heart twisted with clueless helpless empathy as she heard a short sob and whispers from him.

After a few minutes the male nurse appeared and waved Konata over, and dazed with awe and misgivings, she walked behind the partition and stopped short of the warmed water bed where Soujirou was half slumped across a sheeted form hooked up to a spaghetti of i.v.s and electrodes and oxygen masks.

Konata sucked a sharp breath of eerie awe.

Omigod! Omigod!..

Ultramarine tresses splayed over her white pillow like a veil blowing in a breeze around her small pale face, the patient in the bed looked far more girl than woman, and what most struck Konata senseless was their semblance.

Though pale and shrunken, the girl-woman could've been her sister.

No.

Her twin.

'Just like all her pictures!' Konata breathed aloud, spellbound and slowly shuffling up to the bed like in a delicate dream. 'So utterly totally freaky! Like, she's my dead ringer! Oh, bad choice of words, but it's true!'

Soujirou looked up, his face a wet mat and smiled. "See? She's just like you, Konata. Exactly!"

"Yes –" Konata managed to strain from her throat. "Awesome!"

"She's exactly the same when she took her last breath that day," Soujirou continued, his hand touching the girl-woman's pale lips. "But she breaths again, Konata! She breaths! And cancer free! And soon she'll gain her strength and beauty again. Like you."

"That's so great, dad," Konata said, pausing for something apt to say. "Uh. so, what do I say when she wakes?"

"That won't be for a while, Konata. Her brain's still numb in a sense..." He paused as though at a party pooping truth reluctantly offered. "Then, we must also be prepared that – that she might not fully wake again, God help us."

"I – understand," Konata solemnly nodded, gingerly and skittishly reaching to touch the woman's thin pale hand. Like her hand.

'Like, it's so eerie! It's like seeing myself all shriveled up from some disease!'

"So...how long does she stay here?" Konata finally managed to say.

"Another month or so of observation then she can finally go home under remote monitoring. It's important she wakes in a familiar environment to minimize shock to her delicate system."

"Mom. Back home after all this time. Awesome."

"In secret of course, as cited in our contract. Besides, Kanata was always very modest and shy anyway, so publicity would drive her back into her capsule for a hundred years."

"Keep mom home a secret? For how long?"

"Until she makes as full recovery as possible. Secrecy shouldn't be that hard though; happily we live in Japan, not nosy-pokey America! We respect another's privacy here. Not even my loli fans have ever seen my bedroom! Besides, Kanata was always very modest and shy anyway, so any publicity would probably drive her back into her capsule for a hundred years."

"But what about Yu-chan? She keeps secrets like a kitchen drain!"

"I'm asking Yui to take her back for a while until a pest control company totally fumigates a rat and spider nest under Yu-chan's room – which will take months because of environmental impact statements, and in the meanwhile that 'company' – a.k.a Phoenix Corp – will provide Yu-chan free limo service to and from school or anywhere they wanna go. That ought keep 'em happy!"

# # #

Konata never thought spoon-feeding soup to someone would ever hold it's own drama, though she had to gently push the spoon through Kanata's tender lips. Kanata was filling out, the blush returning to her softening face every day and Konata marveled how much her mom was more and more resembled a slightly older twin.

'Man, talk about keeping secrets! Yuki and Kaggie and Tsukasa's dropped by a couple of times and never even guessed Mom's right in the next room!'

Having arrived in the dead of night after Yutaka's room was set-up, Kanata was like a sleeping baby and everything she did was instinctive, from eating reflex to heeding calls to nature which Konata dutifully attended to. A Phoenix Corp doctor daily came by to check on Kanata even though she was remote monitored via electronic bracelets and ankles and small house cameras. One of the most revered instruments to Konata was the little EEG, tracing out the rhythmic waves of Kanata's brain. As long as those blips danced there was hope that Kanata would fully join the living and Konata forced herself not to think in any other way, although she grimly suspected that Kanata had made a moral pact with Soujirou on just this contingency, but she doubted he'd ever bring himself, like her, to ever honoring such a terrible promise.

One day, three weeks in while Konata was playing Ryōō Gakuen Ōtōsai on her PS-2 at the foot of Kanata's bed, she thought she heard a soft moan over the game voices, and rose to check.

Nothing. Just a petite sleeping beauty still doing so.

Konata sighed a thousand wishes; 'Mom, are you ever going to wake up?' she rued. "Please wake! If there's truly any God, please make her wake!"

An eyelash fluttered.

Konata blinked aback, unsure; 'Maybe I'm just hoping too much –'

Another twitch!

And the EEG went nuts like lights at a Saturday night disco.

And Kanata's eyelash trembled again.

"Mom??" Konata shrieked, leaning over the other's face if waiting for a whisper reaching out from the grave.

Soujirou was in the room in seconds. "Konata! What's wrong??"

"Her – Her eyes fluttered! Twice!"

"Are you sure??"

"Yes! Look! She did it again!!"

Excitedly, Soujirou perched the bed beside Kanata. "Kanata? Kanata, do you hear me?"

The girl-woman's eyelashes fluttered then feebly, tiredly opened from huge jade eyes which for a moment gazed the ceiling in a daze then sluggishly rolled to Soujirou.

"Kanata!" Soujirou cried.

Lips trembling, Kanata blinked quizzically at him. "S – S – S Soujirou?" she weakly breathed. "Soujirou...is...that...you??"

Wetness burst in his eyes. "Yes! Yes! You recognize me! Thank god!!" he gushed, gently embracing the girl-woman whose huge jade eyes looked back at him, nonplussed.

"But you...look...look so – so different??" she asked in a soft sweet gentle voice almost too angelic for Konata to believe.

"It's called years and hope and prayers, my little plum. Far too many years!" he gushed and their hands clasped and squeezed like teenagers while a lump welled Konata's breast and throat.

"Mom's – alive! Totally alive! What do I say? I should make a good impression on her to see how good I turned out! But I don't have a dainty thing to wear!'

Kanata's eyes groggily rolled around the room; "Where – where am I?"

"Home, Kanata. Your old art room. Don't you recognize it?"

"Home?? This isn't home. This isn't my flat over the florist."

"Of course not. You moved in with me!"

Kanata's eyes widened in appall and she pulled her blanket up to her chin. "Mo – Moved in? With – you??"

"Hey, how else did I get here – a stork??" Konata impulsively quipped and Kanata eyed her as though astonished.

"What...who...who are you??"

Soujirou grinned at Kanata's bewildered look. "I know she's far different than you last saw here, but this is Konata."

"Hi Mom!" Konata perked with a compromise of excitement and formality. "Uh, long time no see and so so glad you're back!!"

Kanata blinked, puzzled. "Ko–nata?..."

"Yes, Kanata, our daughter's all grown up! Er, well, she's an adult anyway."

"Dau – Daughter??"

"Yes. Little Kona now big Kona!"

"Ko – nata?? Daughter??" Kanata repeated, looking very confused and even skeptical.

"Yea, Kanata! Look at her closely! See the semblance??"

"Daughter??" Kanata weakly shook her head and closed her eyes several times as though straining to recall. "How – How can she be our daughter? We're not – even married."

Konata winced aback; 'Whoa! If she thinks you gotta be married to have a kid, then maybe she's way more pure than even dad used to brag about!"

Soujirou chuckled. "Of course we're married! See our rings?"

"Ring??" Kanata looked confused at her hand. "But – we're just friends!"

"'Friends'??" Konata coughed, boogled.

"And why are you saying she's my child when she's about as old as I am?"

"Actually you got that reversed, honey. You're the youthful-looking one here – as you used to keep reminding me!"

"Yea, Mom! You kinda look exactly like me and I'm only nineteen!"

"But I'm – I'm nineteen," Kanata said, looking confused. "I'm so tired...dizzy!..but I know I'm nineteen!"

"Kanata, right now you're thirty-eight. A magnificently well preserved thirty-eight at that!" Soujirou quipped, levity waning.

"Thirty-eight?? Soujirou, why are you teasing me so?"

"I'm not joking, Kanata!" he urged with a trickle of dread. "When you were frozen, you were nearly twenty, and that was nineteen years ago."

"I was – frozen? I'm – thirty-eight? We're – married??" Soujirou, what – what are you talking about?? Why do you look so different? And where am I without any clothes on underneath??" Kanata bewilderedly asked in distress, facing Konata. "And who is this spirit that looks so much like me? And why does she keep calling me 'Mom'?? Soujirou, I want to go home!"

"Oh-Oh..." Konata soberly uttered under her breath.

**& & &**

Entirely composed and uploaded on iPhone during boring commutes.

**Please** review! If unable to, message me on my bio page!


	2. Chapter 2

**Kanata Thawed**

(sequel to parody "Kanata: Totally Dead?")

**Chapter 2**

by Dee 'ChakichakiGirl' Eon

**ooOoo**

"...So that's our current diagnosis of Hanako Kanata's status after our intensive examinations this week, which NASA and ESA are closely following since they don't need astronauts waking up from hibernation a billion miles away in the same state," Dr. Tanaka rehashed in his plush subterranean Phoenix Corp director's office before Soujirou and Konata's sober faces.

"So you're basically saying thawing her out scrambled her brain cells so she has amnesia?" Konata asked.

"That's too general," Tanaka explained. "As it stands, we gauge that most of Kanata's experiences below the age of seventeen are more or less intact, with progressive degradation as she gets older to her nineteenth year just prior cryogenic suspension. Older memories are usually more resilient because their neural patterns are retraced more over time, so this issue might have to do with biochemical latency in the brain. Based on Kanata's recollection of events which occurred during those years, she has roughly five percent of her memories at nineteen, roughly fifteen percent of her memories at eighteen, and so forth."

"Yes," Soujirou said in bafflement. "Kanata seems to easily recall places things we'd done our early times together, but almost nothing about our later relationship!"

"Yea, that's so weird. Like, mom doesn't remember marrying Dad or even giving birth to me! He's just – a family friend!"

"Memory doesn't heal uniformly. The best way to think of Kanata's memories is being a mile-long train that a giant has randomly lifted cars off, especially the trailing half of the train, leaving gaps between the train's cars. Kanata's brain, in its slow re-generation, is trying to reach out and pull all these separated cars together back into one coherent though much shorter train, hopefully still in chronological sequence."

"So just how much brain damage is there, Doctor?" Soujirou asked.

"Surprisingly, our microscans detect very little cerebral damage, and certainly not enough to induce spotty memory loss like this, so we think most of her 'missing' memories might be intact in isolated pools."

"So how come they aren't together, doctor?"

"Again, Miss Izumi, cryogenic re-animation is bleeding-edge territory. It could be that some neural branches of her brain might be atrophied or simply chemically deactivated by the chemical changes induced by super-cold."

"You mean some parts of her brain aren't de-frosted yet?"

"Not exactly, but you're in the right ball field."

"Well, just how much of her later life memories are gone?" somberly asked Soujirou.

"No, not necessarily 'gone', Mr. Izumi. More like neurologically inaccessible, not destroyed. Simply put, vast areas of her brain might simply lack the pathways to communicate with others right now. As her brain re-generates its neural networks under gene therapy much of that will reactivate, but for now for all intents and purposes, the most stable memories she possesses are those established when she was below sixteen or seventeen years old."

"Great! My mom's head's younger than I am!" Konata quipped before sighing. "So, how do we treat her? She acts like Dad's just an old family 'friend' and I'm his creepy house guest! In fact she's scared piss of me!"

"Huh. Along with being sensitive, Kanata was also raised so conservatively traditional that she's overly superstitious too," Soujirou admitted somewhat guiltily from Konata's snicker. "She thinks Konata's really some kind of wraith or omen haunting her."

"And that creeps ME out! I can't even hug my Mom or tell her how I feel because she's freaked-out about me! It really sucks!"

"Ah, that's most regrettable – and at the same time fortunate. Her mind's trying to make logical sense of the discrepancies of her world, even if it's erroneous logic."

"Doctor, you almost sound like that's a good thing!"

"Imagine your boat blows into smithereens; you'd climb onto the closest most stable wreckage you could find to rest and figure out what happened later, correct? That's what Kanata's mind is doing to avoid exacerbating her condition with confusion and conflicts which could stress her brain chemistry and neural re-generation the wrong way. She must remain calm and composed and yes, cheerful to properly convalesce. Let her brain recuperate on its own time. Even if it takes bending or omitting the truth."

"Wait –!" Konata said. "You want us to let Mom keep on thinking that she's still nineteen and not even hitched to Dad yet and I'm just some spooky house-guest who looks like her? How the heck can we do that??"

"With bravado and tact," said Tanaka, taking a sip of green tea. "I've researched Kanata's personal and family history, and though regrettably her diary was long confiscated by her family, I gathered pivotal incidents in her life which I want to take advantage of to promote her healing, by way of stability transference."

"What's that, Doctor?" Soujirou asked.

"In layman's terms, if you have a broken leg but still must get around you use a leg cast and a cane until your leg's healed enough to assume the load. Stability transference. It doesn't matter what the cane's made of or what it looks like; so long as it works. Now with deep hypnosis we can construct a 'fugue patch' that'll act like a cane for Kanata's mind by creating a false but familiar perception of the world and herself that's less bewildering and contradictory, hence less stressful to her system."

Soujirou nodded; "Like when stage magicians hypnotize people to believe they're naked on a tropic beach or the North Pole to make them clown around?"

Tanaka grinned. "Your writer's research at work, I see! Generally that's the idea, though it won't be that degrading, and it will certainly be more dramatic in making Kanata comfortably function in the world while she's subconsciously pulling herself together."

"Hypnotizing mom, uh? Well, just don't make a slip up and have her chasing cats around the block and howling at the moon, okay?" Konata gibed.

"Oh, you haven't heard the punchline, Miss Izumi. When I draw on elements from her deep past to create this 'patch', it will deeply involve you in a way you never dreamed."

**ooOoo**

"Mmm. That's most interesting, Kanata-san. Most interesting!" a spiffily-suited Tanaka sincerely said in the Izumi living room as though taking notes of a surprise mention during a pleasant conversation. "So you say your earliest memories right after your car accident, even before waking up here, was a dream that you visited Konata and Soujirou as an angel?"

Kneeling across the table from him, wearing a floral yukata like Konata, Kanata blushed a pretty blush and Konata almost snickered at how girlishly cute she appeared;

'Man, she's so bishojo princess it's hard to believe she was ever a bride much less a Mom, really! Geeze! I sure hope I don't look that way to people!'

It also marveled Konata that Kanata didn't seem to sense that nearly three weeks passed since she first became conscious in her room, and was acting now as though she just came home from convalescing from a bad car accident in a city hospital at sixteen years old without any break in time, with no recollection of her first awakening and bewilderment or all the extensive tests and hypnotic 'patch' programming since then and now. It seemed too fantastic to be real until Tanaka admitted that most of the techniques used to make this come about were derived from very successful Cold and Hot War captive brainwashing techniques.

But that dark angle didn't dim Konata's outlook; 'I'm happy for small favors. Mom could still be in a deep coma or dead. I can ride out anything till she's back to normal!'

"Er, yes, doctor," Kanata softly answered with almost coy bashfulness. "It's all very hazy now and going away, but it was like – like I was among them, watching them playing games and hugging and taking pictures. I even tried to pose behind them in one."

"Pictures??" Konata perked. "Wait a minute! Dad! Remember when you were showing me that new camera and there was a shadow behind us in one of the pictures?"

"Umm. Yes Konata, however that was months before Kanata – woke up here."

"Approximately when?" asked Tanaka, curious.

"Oh, that was – the day before Golden Week began. Yes," Soujirou affirmed. "In fact, that was a most peculiar night, as though there was a eerie calm scented with incense and flowers from the fields outside that moved us to talk about Kanata."

Tanaka nodded, intrigued. "Most fascinating! Do you have the pictures?"

Konata and Soujirou blushed; "Uh no. See...Dad destroyed it."

"The pictures?"

"Er, the whole thing."

"Because you insisted, Konata!" Soujirou asserted. "You were so upset!"

"Me upset?? You didn't just want to delete the picture, but burn the whole camera! Boy, did it smell!"

Kanata twittered; "Really! You all almost make it sound like I was haunting you!"

"Huh, well, you had to be there," Konata abashedly grumbled.

Tanaka raised his hand and snapped his fingers and Kanata abruptly froze, her clear jade eyes gazing aimlessly. "Sleep," he uttered and she quietly slumped upon the table.

Konata felt an eerie breathlessness at such of display of seeming mind control;

"Fascinating observation," Tanaka said, sipping green tea and stroking his chin. "The night prior Golden Week was when Kanata's metabolism was re-animated; two months before she finally regained consciousness here. In fact, the late hour that her cerebrum was brought up to temperature, her brain waves suddenly snapped on in the most erratic waves we'd ever seen for several minutes before they settled to normal frequencies."

Soujirou asked; "Was that a bad thing?"

"Well, we found no real ill after-affects, but then it would've been the first time her brain functioned on any level for nearly twenty years."

"Maybe those brain waves might've been her first dream since being frozen too?" asked Konata, eying her sleeping twin with renewed awe. "Maybe – maybe she had an out-of-body experience and visited us that night, so her brainwaves were all messed up because her spirit was out of the house!"

Tanaka chuckled. "I wouldn't go that far, but it's an elegant coincidence. Hopefully not some delusion induced by the procedure. It's important that you two remember that Kanata will also be adverse to mneomic sequence displacements."

"Er, respectfully, doctor; for dummies, please?" Konata requested.

"No, no, neither of you are, trust me! I apologize. I should've digested my thoughts first. Don't forget my train gap analogy, and that the optimum intact memory-age of her patch has been set at sixteen years, however there might be older memories popping in to out of chronological order, but she won't perceive they are. It'd be like she's arbitrarily recalling inappropriate memories."

"So they're real but misplaced random memories that are inconsistent for her mental age, correct? Yes, I see," Soujirou remarked, nodding.

"Well, I hardly!" Konata quipped. "Psyche 101 was a homework assignment I missed!"

"Nevertheless, your role here is crucial, Miss Izumi. It'll be you who'll be instrumental in shepherding Kanata's mind and memory to normalcy as a role model, even though it might be socially uncomfortable deceiving your friends so."

Konata wryly chuckled. "Yea, it's sure gonna be fun explaining her!"

"You have to pull it off, Konata!" urged Soujirou. "We've come so far and so close! I'd do anything to have my sweet Kanata back whole and sound!"

"I will Dad, I will! Don't worry! I mean she IS my mom! It's just that it's so – so crazy! Man! I can't wait to see Kagami's face when she sees this!"

"Your friends will be easy to convince, but what about Yui? She knew Kanata as a child, did she not?" Tanaka asked Soujirou in a tone more concerned of security than patient.

"Yes, almost like an older sister. Yui – was rather jealous about Kanata marrying me and being taken away, so to speak..." Soujirou asserted a little tamely. "Er, I'm going to talk to Yui soon and explain the situation. She's ditzy, but I think her heart never really buried Kanata like the rest of her family has, so she might be far more receptive to seeing her alive as a person and not a monster. Also she takes oaths and being a cop very seriously. I believe I can trust her not to reveal our subterfuge to the rest of the family."

"And Yu-chan will swallow anything you tell her!" Konata quipped, eying Kanata. "Man, in a way I wished for something like this, but never expected it to happen this way!"

"Well, just try to be as spontaneous as you can," Tanaka told them. "The stage is all set and it's your turns to be good supporting actors and get her out and excersise her mind and memories!" He snapped his fingers again and Kanata abruptly sat up and demurely smiled as though not an instant was missed from her 'nap'.

Konata shook her head; 'Awesome! She might've been frozen at nineteen for nineteen years, but she'd pass for thirteen in a heartbeat! No wonder Dad went nuts finding her! Worst – to think that I look just like that in 3-D?? Geese!!'

"Well, Kanata, my little check-up shows that your head injuries are recovering well from your car collision, though expect your memory to be a little hazy at times. Just take it easy and heed whatever Mr. Izumi tells you."

For a moment Konata thought she detected dismay flitting Kanata's face before being washed away with a mannered geisha-like smile and bow; "I shall abide doctor's orders, sir...though I am concerned of being away from my job at the florist so long."

'Oh–Oh. A nineteen-year-old memory butting in!' Konata worried, exchanging concerned looks with Soujirou but Tanaka just smiled.

"Don't worry about it, Kanata-san; we talked to him and he said take all the time it takes to completely recover and your job will still be waiting for you."

"Oh, such a relief, thank you, doctor! And to so kindly bring me back home from the hospital so I won't be recuperating all alone in my flat," Kanata thanked, though somehow it felt a little hollow to Kanata.

Soujirou chuckled. "Well, I AM your – a family friend and Konata's still here, so why not? Besides, you two have been like daughters to me ever since your parents passed," he said as though slyly testing her.

"Uh, yes..." Kanata said, lightly touching her temple as though inwardly trying to recall as elusive memory. Soujirou and Konata held their breaths. "That's – still rather vague, first arriving here, but it'll return to me."

Konata shook her head in awe; 'Man! That patch stuff sure works! Mom really thinks she's been living here with 'family friend' and 'guardian' Dad instead of her real foster parents after her folks were wiped out in a plane crash when she was ten!'

Tanaka rose. "I'll see you next week then. Don't get up. Have a good day, Miss Izumi."

"Thank you, Dr. Tanaka," Konata said with a bow as Soujirou rose to walk Tanaka to the door. She chuckled inwardly; 'Like he even needed to come to check her out, with this placed more wired up than mission control!'

She turned to Kanata who was staring at Soujirou's wake with an almost timid look. ''Mom's so fidgety when Dad's away?' wondered Konata, then buoyed by a notion; 'I guess that's one good sign that she still notices him maybe more than just a 'family friend'!'

"So, you're getting better and better each day, Kanata-chan!" Konata brightly chimed. "With all those new drugs and stuff they're giving you, soon you'll be even healthier than me and Yu-chan! Maybe I ought try it too! I'm tired of this Nagasaki radiation curse making us prone to heat strokes and car sickness and germs all the time!"

"Yes, it would be a welcome change," Kanata replied more polite than conversant, looking dourly at where Soujirou had sat.

'Wonder why she's so gloomy all a sudden? Well, at least I'm not some kind of ghost to her anymore!'

Konata chuckled. "Uh...so, you fit my clothes pretty nice! In fact you fit some of them better than me!"

Kanata blushed. "Thank you."

"Er, the cool thing about it is if we go out trying new clothes, I won't need a mirror anymore! Ha-Ha!" Konata chuckled to Kanata's lame smile.

'Geese, what's eating her?'

"So, you don't do jeans, huh?"

"Uh, no. I prefer dresses – sun dresses mostly. Outside, they make you feel like you're part of the wind and sky."

"Er, sure, I kinda figured that. Uh, are you into MMORPGs? We can play in my room!"

"Me?" Kanata perked if at an anathema; "No, no, I'm sorry. I'm not really fond of games or electronic things. I mostly like to grow flowers and read romances and watch nature paint the world different day."

Long needling curiosity pushed Konata to bait and ask; "Uh, well, I was just wondering what it was that brought you and Dad – er, Soujirou together, you know?"

"Together??"

"I mean, like I like video games like he does, so isn't there anything you like that you share with him??"

"Share?" Kanata echoed vapidly, almost reluctantly before timidly shaking her head. "I – don't think we really share that much."

Konata had the impression she was treading sensitive ground and backed off. 'Uh, well, I'm just happy we're back together since you left to live on your own instead of staying here and going to school."

"O Onee-chan! You make me sound like a prodigal sister!" Kanata twittered, looking a little sheepish. "I hope I'm not upsetting anything you've changed since I left!"

Hearing the words first uttered sent a bloom of eerie but pleasant warmth through Konata like a long wistful wonder at last answered;

'Onee-chan!'

Sister!

'Totally unreal!' Konata reflected in awe; 'Mom really thinks I'm the even weaker sister she had who died when they were eight from the same weakness we and Yu-chan have!'

"Naw, good thing I've an extra – er, your old futon's still in my room, but you can move into Yu – er, the guest room now and wear anything in my closet you want like you already are! Just a joke!"

"That's wonderful! Oh, I do hope we can continue like before together, Onee-chan!" Kanata happily said, reaching to clasp the other's hands. "Sometimes things feel so muddled and don't make any sense, but when I'm with you I feel deep inside that somehow, we're even closer than twins!"

'Man, if you only knew!'

"Hey, you been through a lot, Mo – er, 'Sis' – and I'm only too happy to help you get back on your feet."

"Yes, Kanata," added Soujirou, returning from the door, "Consider this your home again in every way, and don't be afraid to change anything you feel changing."

"Except my room!" Konata gibed with a chuckle to Kanata's weak grin.

"Thank you very much for your hospitality, Soujirou-san!" Kanata said with a perfunctory smile and bow, suddenly bashful; "Still...it must look – unseemly to the neighbors for me to board under the same roof as you, Soujirou, even as – an old family friend."

'Why do I get the feeling that I'm in the way of something heavy here??'

"Aw, don't worry about it, Kanata-chan!" Konata lightly injected; "Having Da – er, him as a guardian's just like living with a dirty old Dad!" she joked, missing Kanata's paled face while indulging Soujirou's smirk, but inwardly Konata chided herself;

'Okay, Dad's lusting for her like a true lolicon, true, but then it must be eating him alive not having his wife back in his room after all this time – only she's still on this dumb friendship streak with him! Maybe it might stroke her memory well if someone played Cupid in here sometime, but she's still so innocent and sweet that it'd be like him robbing the cradle! Then, that's Dad's speed anyway, right?'

"Would you like some tea, Kanata?" Soujirou asked and she beamed and bowed.

"Thank you, I would!" she said, almost anxiously watching him leave.

Konata cleared her throat and uneasily smiled. "So, 'sis' ...instead of planting more flowers outside tomorrow, how'd you like to meet my friends at the park? Tsukasa packs a mean lunch and Kagami will give us a demonstration of how to gnash teeth to powder."

Kanata lightly grinned. "Er, that sounds delightful, thank you, Onee-chan," she politely said, again eying the kitchen with poorly concealed angst.

"Is there something wrong, Kanata-chan?" Konata asked.

"Uh? Er, nothing! Nothing –!" Kanata softly gushed, then as though reconsidering her place and aching for a confidant, she licked her lips with misgivings and gingerly slided closer to Konata to a soberly whisper; "O Onee-chan! I – I wonder if it was so wise I returned here."

"Why not? It's home!"

"Yes..." Kanata grudgingly said, almost sheepishly hesitating, "but the reason I ran away to get a job and a flat was – was to – to keep away from Soujirou-san."

Konata blinked aback. "Ran away?? Keep away? What do you mean?"

Kanata blushed and fidgeted with humiliating urgency. "I – I know I shouldn't be talking like this, Onee-chan, but – but has Soujirou ever made any – any advances on you??"

"Advances??" Konata gushed, blushing a storm, totally taken aback. "Dad??"

"Father perished in the plane crash with mom, Onee-chan."

"Uh, er yes. I – I – just call Soujirou 'Dad' because he's – kinda been like one since, right?"

"Not to me, I regret," Kanata said with a heavy sigh. "Soujirou-san might be our family's friend, but ever since we moved in with him he's been – pursuing me."

"After you??"

"Ever since we moved in!"

"Ever since –? But – you were only ten!"

"So were you, Onee-chan!" reminded Kanata, desperately asking. "Can you think of any reason why Soujirou-san hasn't – flirted you??"

Konata's lips flapped, nonplussed; 'Holy Geese! Dad was hitting on her on the sly at her old foster home while still a kid?? Then why am I surprised?'

"I – I – I have no idea, Kanata-chan." 'But in a way that's a white lie' Konata ruefully mused, 'but not as bad as what she's hinting!'

Kanata nodded as though at once relieved and envious. "Then you were spared my shame, especially after he found where I lived after I left several months ago."

"Uh, well, isn't that alright? I mean, you still feel for him, right?"

Kanata whirled at Konata with dismay. "That's just it, Onee-chan! I don't! I never have!"

"What? But you must! I mean, you had me!"

"I'm sorry?"

"Uh, I mean – mean, maybe you just – haven't given enough time to – know him better."

Blushing ruby, Kanata turned aside with a rueful whisper; "Perhaps, I know him – too well."

"What do you mean, mom – Kanata-chan?" Konata asked and Kanata nibbled her tender lower lip and glanced at the kitchen then hesitantly leaned even closer to Konata.

"Sister, I am so ashamed! I am so weak! I've always been like warm wax under Soujirou's silky words and suave strokes. Now I bring my shame back here to you too."

"Shame? What shame, Mom – er, Kanata?"

Kanata's face sank even lower and grimmer. "The shame I brought to both of us, and brought us here."

"What? What's wrong with here??"

"It's not just his house, Onee-chan, but our – honor. Or dishonor."

"That's crazy! There's no dishonor living here!"

"It is true, Onee-chan! That's why – why our relatives refused to take us in instead after our parents died!"

"What?? Kanata-chan, are you – you sure about this?"

"Of course! When was the last you recalled meeting our cousins?"

"Uhh...my mind's a little fizzy."

'Holy Geese! This wasn't in Tanaka's family research!'

"It was just before I declared my – my affection for Soujirou-san, like a foolish wide-eyed girl!"

"So you did like him way back when!"

Kanata blinked back, blushed, then hardened. "Like??" she almost scornfully echoed with bitterness incongruous her previous angelic demeanor. She shook her head, "No, that was – was a giddy girlish infatuation, dazzled smug and swarmy by a suave older man whose – unseemly interest stifled my growth in so many ways before I realized what he really was, but our family sensed it long before and denied me."

"Denied you??"

"Yes! They thought that my – feelings went even further than Soujirou-san's desires had at the time, and they didn't wish his type to dishonor the family through me!'

"Wait, wait, Kanata-chan! Are you saying they abandoned you – er, both of us just because Dad crashed your foster home to see you??"

"'Foster home'?? What do you mean?"

"Uh? Oh – Oh, er, I – I was – thinking of something else. I – I meant here."

'O Man, I could really use your diary like a scorebook now!'

"Yes, they've forsaken both of us! I regret my wanton girlish longings for Soujirou-san stained you too, my innocent sister! I'm so sorry! If only I were wiser and heeded our family's warnings and my conscience, all could've been much different. I would've ran away before Soujirou-san became overbearing and too jealous –"

"Wait, wait! Time out! I can't believe this! Sure Dad's a pervert, but he wouldn't chase you out of here if you'd only kicked his mug and said 'Stop it'! Believe me, I know!"

"Then, you never had the feelings I had for him – at first, Onee-chan! You never knew the humiliation of knowing your affection meant less to him than your particular looks! It was like my heart was betrayed by a false shadow of gallant knight, so I ran, but he sought me out and found me, but instead shunning him, I weakened. His charm roused back that foolish tickled child in me and I succumbed...shamefully, in more than words," Kanata moaned with half-choked words tugging Konata's speechless breast, stunning Konata at seeing 'herself' in such anguish.

"What do you mean??" Konata fretfully asked and Kanata gnashed her tender coral lower lip and skittishly glanced the way to the kitchen, as though pausing to psych up to admit the deepest humiliation.

"You – You see, Onee-chan...just before it crashed into that other car, my taxi was taking me back to my flat from – from the clinic..."

"Clinic? Why? Because you got sicker?"

"Worst, Onee-chan! Far worst!..." Kanata bemoaned, taking Konata's hand and pressing it on her lower midriff, and with stuttering shame shook her head. "My weakness with Soujirou has – has brought fruit!..."

"Fruit??" Kanata said quizzically before something primally familiar in Kanata's sad jade eyes sunk in and bloomed disbelief. "No!"

"Yes, Onee-chan, it's true!"

"No! You're wrong!" Konata cried, pulling her hand away but still staring in horror where it'd been. "You can't be – be – ! There's no way you're – you're that way now! No way!"

"What do you mean, Onee-chan??"

"Uh, I – I mean, it – it didn't happen! Couldn't! Not that way! I mean you're only – only sixteen!"

"Onee-chan, it is the truth!"

"No!!" Konata blurted, bolting to her feet with gut-retching appall and disillusionment wrenching down to her very self-esteem and reputation and more.

"Are you saying that Dad – that you – you and him – made me, way before you and him were even – even in – love??..."

**# # #**

Composed entirely on iPhone during long boring commutes.

**Please** send anonymous reviews to be posted on Reviews Page via messages on my bio page!


End file.
